Chico and Alice exchanged glances. Neither seemed particularly enthused with the idea.
"Harold!" she said after a moment. "You're putting our address!"
"Yes. So?"
"So . . ." Her eyes narrowed as she inclined her head toward Chico. "What if he tries to, you know, come to the house."
"Oh, I'd never do that," said Chico. Then he gave the matter some thought. "Unless you invited me."
Harold tried to smile pleasantly. What he achieved was the look of a man passing a kidney stone, but he continued valiantly, "What a . . . what a marvelous idea. We have to do that, real soon."
"When?"
"What?"
"When do you want me to come over?" He looked eagerly from one of them to the other.
"I'm . . . I'm not sure. It's going to be pretty hectic for us, too hectic to make social plans."
"Oh." Chico looked crestfallen, but he brightened up. "Well, 1*11 give you a call, okay?" He smiled ingratiatingly.
"Okay. You bet."
They walked at double-time down the street. Chico watched them go, and when they were almost out of earshot he screamed, "Are we talking dinner or just coffee and cake here?"
He shrugged when he got no response, and looked down proudly at his first signature. Only a few thousand more and he could knock off for the day.
Then he reached into his beard and moaned. "Crud! The sons of bitches took my pen." He shook his head in disillusionment. "You just can't trust anyone these days. There's freaks everywhere."
Professor Carol Kalish, noted geologist, was emerging from the depths of the New York University subway stop on the BMT when a shadowy figure materialized in front of her.
In one hand was a switchblade. In the other was a clipboard.
"Hello," growled Groucho. "I'd like your support for Arthur Penn, who would like to run as an independent for mayor of New York City. Sign this or I'll cut your fucking heart out"
Groucho collected 117 signatures. Before lunch. Without breaking a sweat.
* * *
Up in Duffy Square, in the heart of the Broadway theater district, Arthur Penn stood on a street corner near a Howard Johnson's and felt extremely forelorn.
A likely looking pair of elderly women approached him, and he started to say, in a very chatty and personable manner, "Hello, my name is Arthur Penn and I would like your support in my candidacy for mayor...." which was more or less the phrasing that Merlin had told him to use. But the couple picked up their pace and stared straight ahead. His voice trailed off as Arthur realized with a shock that they were ignoring him. But then he thought maybe they simply had not heard him. The elderly were notorious for being hard of hearing. Yes, that may very well be it.
So the next time a youngish, businessman looking sort approached him, he began his approach again of "Hello, my name is . . ." But again he got no further than stating his raison d'etre before this chap, too, was out of earshot.
No. It was not possible. People of any age could never be so unspeakably rude as to ignore someone who was point-blank addressing them. Could they?
Arthur checked his appearance in the reflection in the display window of the Howard Johnson's. No, his suit was well cut and smart, his grooming immaculate.
It started to sink in on him that everything that Merlin had said to him very early this morning, before he'd gone out canvassing, had been absolutely correct.
He had remembered being thunderstruck by the concept that Merlin had introduced to him, there in their office at the Camelot Building.
"Is it possible," he had asked with naivety astounding in a man nearly a millennium old, "that there might be some people who won't vote for me?"
Merlin stared at Arthur, looking so modern in the dress pants and shirt and yet so innocent of the world around him. What in the name of all the gods had he thrust the king into? he wondered. Maybe he should let him go back to the cave. But the boy wizard put the thought from his mind and concentrated on the issue at hand. "Yes." He laughed tersely. "There is an outside chance."
"But who would not vote for me?"
"People who would want to examine your record of past achievements, for one."
"But my achievements are legend- Oh, I see." He slumped against his desk, his hands in his pockets. "I see the problem."
"Yes. Understand, Arthur, in this form my power is a force to be reckoned with. I can conjure up credit cards. I can create things like Social Security numbers, drivers licenses-although for pity's sake take a few lessons first-and I can put records of your birth in Bethlehem ..."
"How very messianic."
"... Pennsylvania," Merlin continued. "I can conjure up a history of military service for you. I can, essentially, create an identity for you, Arthur Penn, but I cannot alter by sheer force of will the entire public consciousness. I can't make people like you. That will be your task."
And now Arthur, with the words ringing in his ears, was starting to wonder whether it was a task he was up to.
For the first time he turned and saw, really saw, the hustle and bustle of the area around him.
It was a nippy day, but the sun was shining brightly. It was twelve-thirty, the height of the lunch hour. Furthermore it was a Wednesday, which meant many people were out looking to pick up matinee tickets to shows.
Arthur was not prepared for it, for the pulse of the humanity around him. Every blessed one of the passing people was in a hurry, as if (although the comparison didn't occur to him) they had an inner spring mechanism unwinding at an incredible rate.
It had not dawned on him at first that it had any direct bearing on him. Well, of course it did, he now realized. He couldn't expect people to stop in their tracks for him. He had to attempt to adapt himself to their speed. He had to be flexible, after all. The wise man-the civilized man-knew when to be firm and when to adapt.
So he began to speak, faster and faster, and soon the words were tumbling one over the other, like cars piling high on a crashing locomotive.
Hellomynameisarthurpennandiwould-Jikeyour ..." The only evidence that he was having any sort of effect at all was that now the people were walking faster to avoid hearing him.
Abruptly he stopped talking. His lips thinned and his brow clouded. He looked across the street and noticed that in a traffic island there was a mob of people, all milling around in loosely formed lines. Reaching out, Arthur stopped the first passerby, a delivery boy carrying somebody's called-in lunch.
"What is the purpose of that gathering?'' asked Arthur.
"Look, asshole, I'm runnin' late and I can't- uuuhhnnnff!"
Arthur had grabbed a handful of the boy's windbreaker, and despite the fact that he and the teenager were the same height, effortlessly lifted him into the air.
The boy's eyes bugged out, not from lack of breath so much as from pure astonishment.
"I will be ignored no Iongerl" thundered Arthur. But then he saw the lack of color in the boy's face, and immediately his anger lessened as he chided himself. "Is this what it has come to then, Pendragon? Threatening hapless errand boys?" With that he lowered the boy gently to the ground. "Art well, lad?"
"My ..." He gulped once, afraid to say the wrong thing and set his captor off again. "My name's not Art. But I'm okay, yeah."
"I have been at this for much of the day, and the paltry few signatures that I have accrued-blast their eyes!" He smashed a fist against a nearby wall. "That / should have to endure this just so that I can offer them my aid. The leadership I should be given by right I have to scrabble for . . . but that's no concern of yours, lad. However, I still await an answer to my original query-the purpose of yon gathering."
"That's the TKTS line," said the boy, pronouncing each letter individually. "People stand there on line and can buy tickets for half price to-"